thinking about 8th edition part 1

UR GOOD

That where the last word I read on my screen before is quit CODMW2¹ and started to typ this article. Granted those words came form a new players so thy probably don't mean that much. But since i won the last 3 games 30/10 or something i gues he had a small point². Than again according to my computer i have played the game for over 188 hours so I had enough practise whit it. And well for those of you who where wondering what that had to do whit warhammer thats my point. Practise makes perfect. GW has been producing warhammer editions for over 30 years now and they have been getting better at it. The final tome that is the new 8^th edition rule book is a impressive thing indeed³ . Come to think of it I like it a lot. Not only because I can use it to bash my opponents skull in if he argues over the rules to much but also because of the way the rules are written. This is the first time I have ever seen a rule book that is written in first person. And it's a brilliant thing indeed, it feels like something by a gamer for gamers . It just oozes love of the hobby from ever y full colour page. For those of you who download pdf's from the net or want the soft cover version whit just the rules section. I have no problem whit that⁴ but you are all idots. This tome, yes that's what it is, is freaking cool. GO GET IT.

Ok so now that we have established that I have indeed sold my soul to gamesworkshop⁵ lets get into the nitty gritty of it. First of in my preview is sated my relief to see that wheeling was gone. Well its not. And yet it is. Wheeling should still be done when moving forward but there are some major changes non the less. When moving backward or sideways no more wheeling (or marching) when charging you still have to wheel if you can and want to. But it does not cost movement. I can not tell you how glad I am about that. The charge rules are now pretty easy. One you need to see the target. Two you need to bee able to move towards the target in a nearly straight line. (you can wheel once) Three you roll once to see how far you charge and if the target is in range you charge even if a wheel would cost you 40 inch of movement you still get to charge. Great idée. Whit the large 10 wide horde units wheeling would take a lot of inches making it almost impossible to charge. And that would suck ass. Also in the past wheeling on a charge could get you in all kind of arguments about if they had enough movement or not. No more of that. Splendid. Still not happy whit the random charge range tough. Secondly I intensely dislike that the number of ranks you can count when checking if your steadfast. (stubborn )are not reduced when flanked. Realistically (or fantastically)getting flanked should be one of the worst things that can ever happen to you unit . Now not so much worse still whit the reform amid defeat rule units can now reform in combat even when defeated. So your proud flanking unit can expect to be facing the enemy unit head on the next turn. Sadly if feel that this single rule could completely break the game. Because it has the potential to grind the game down into grinding match between really large units. Ah well we shall see.

Also while reading trough the book I noticed on thing that shoked me lets call it the dwarf destroyer witch of doom. Now check this out . Lets say you want to completely destroy a dwarven combat line. Try this trick. Take 2 dark elf sorceress one lvl2 and a lvl 4 on a Pegasus. Give the one on the Pegasus the power scroll and let them both take death magic. Now roll for you level 2 first and your level 4 second. You should now most likely have THE PURPLE SUN OF XEREUS⁶ on you lvl4 wizard.

Fly this sweetheart over to the flank of the dwarf lines and use the scroll to cast the spell of doom on the higher difficulty roling 7 dice (whoot darkelfs) IF guaranteed Now it does not matter much how far the spell goes since there is much change that there is a 5 inch gap between the dwarf units This means that the template will go all the way to the other side of the battle line and effect most of the army. Now dwarfs being dwarfs that will most likely kill about 2/3 of his troops.

Ok ok i'll admit something could go wrong ( you could misfire the spell for instance) But still if it goes right it's game over. Any way the powerscorll is a great item for darkelfes the ability to cast any spell whit a 100% change on IF is great. Some of the higher lore spells are game breaking if they go off. As o other example the last spell form lore of beast is fun charging you sorceress into something and changing her into a freaking great dragon is fun.

Anny way more about the new rules in a few days when i dive into what i would use whit my empire army.

 

¹ CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 2 for those not into plugged gaming

² OK OK CANN IT BIG GUY REMEBER ARGOGANCE IS A NO-NO

³ If only in sheer weight.

⁴Ok I do have whit those downloaders support the hobby man.

⁵Ok not realy but thy kind of have it as a initial deposit

⁶I think i'll call it the spell of DOOM form now on

Arrogance is epic fail.

So what do I mean by that. Well simply that I am a arrogant twat and that I did EPIC FAIL…..TWICE. Well I doubt that most people I know would describe me as arrogant, in fact I think most folks would considered me quite humble. My gaming friends tough not so much. When it comes to wargaming I am really a arrogant bastard, I consider myself one of the best warhammer players, one of the best 40k players and certainly one of the best warmachine players at my lgs¹. And I think I have a two reasons to do so. One being confidant of yourself certainly helps you play whit more balls than when you are doubtful of your own actions. Two I do seem (in my mind) to win a lot of games.

Ok so warhammer is it fair to be arrogant? Lets see I did win 5 out of 6 games in the recent campaign, but I did not perform all that well within the campaign rules. Out of those 5 only twice did I fulfill my campaign objectives so nope not very well done. Also the last tournament I played I placed LAST. Talk about epic fail (ok to be fair I did go whit one crapy army to begin whit but he no excuses)

40K then? Hmm well properly ok to be a bit arrogant here. After all id did place top ten in the DUTCH GT 3 years in row (and top twenty twice as well). But then again I did only win one game during the last battle of the clubs. And that one did not count for the team score (EPIC FAIL).

Ok war machine. Well ok here I can be arrogant. I have won 24 games in a row (woot) Not that I tent t o keep track of that but after winning 5 times in a row in the ladder campaign (and winning the 2 games before that ) I decided to try and see how long I would last. 24 games it turns out . But than we came to the point that is the reason to type this whole blog. I lost, and not only did I lose I lost because I am a stupid cunt and made a lot of mistakes. And the worst part is I lost to Ben ( sorry Ben) I don't exactly hate the guy, but he kind of gets on my nerves. That's properly because like me his control over his emotions is a little limited. So when he hits whit a attack, he goes on a annoyance spree telling me how awesome that was. When he loses he mopes about for 10 minutes. That kind of thing gets on my nerves². Sadly he's one of the few people who plays war machine against me¹. Getting my war caster shot while I just shut was bad enough. But finding out that I fucked up my own turn by activating my models in the wrong order was even worse. Realizing later I did lose because I was not really paying the game much attention, cause I tough I would easily win. Now that really hurt not only did Ben whoop my ass I helped him do it.

So time for revenge, vengeance, justice, retribution… time for a rematch. And he whooped my ass in turn two because if left my warcaster in the open to be charged by a magehunter assassin.EPIC FAIL⁴.

So time for me to shape up get my brains back , come up whit a master plan and stomp his army flat . I'll get you next time Ben …… next time⁵

 

¹: And well some pll at the lgs are realy good …. Sadly better than me tough.

²: Come on Ben lighten up

³: The lesson here kids is, if you are a ahole you will and up playing against aholes

⁴: I would settle for permanent face palm as well

 

⁵: or the next time or the next or the ………

 

BDZG on 8th

Bad dice short preview of the 8th edition of warhammer

 

Well it's almost here the 8th edition of warhammer fantasy. Personly I can't help but think that this new edition will have the same major impact as the change between 4^th and 5^th . Seeing how everything is getting redone. Form the movement to the combat phase and even the bonuses a command group provides to your unit. Having only been able to have a quick peek at the new rules I can't really say anything final about them yet, but I'll share a few of my thoughts whit you below.

 

The movement Phase.

Finely wheeling is dead. And good riddance. While wheeling was one of the most historically (or practically) correct rules in warhammer, nobody did this right. I have literally only ever played against like 3 persons that wheeled correctly. Most players used the system that is now the rules any way so it's fine whit me.

Random charge ranges: Well I don't really know if I like this rule yet. On the positive side it finally fixes some of the imbalance between cavalry and infantry, by the fact that the difference in max charge range between two units is now only the difference in their movement and not twice the difference (ok that is one weird sentence). On the negative side it introduces more randomness into already pretty random game.

The magic Phase.

Magic gets powered down and up at the same time. First of spells get harder to cast but you get more bang for your buck. The best thing about the new system is that you are no longer required to bring a lot of wizards just for magic defense. Since the amount of magic dice is now random and the max difference between power dice and dispel dice is now 6. You can expect to block some of the incoming magic even if you just brought a single wizard. Sadly the system yet again makes the game more random. But I like it better than the old one cause it had more style and glamour to it and that's what magic should be about .

The shooting phase.

O boy. Well the new shooting rules make a lot more practical sense now. Archers in the good old dark ages did not line up single file to fire their arrows so why did mine have to. The extra rank of shooting means I can get the same amount of fire power into les space and that is great. So shooting should be more effective. On the other side even dwarfs can now charge you gunline form 12 inch or more with a little luck. So there is generally going to be les shooting.

Like wheeling a other thing that I will not miss is guessing ranges. Not that I was bad at it but it always seemed a bit weird to me that the general was ranging in the artillery .What the hell did I hire that engineer for than? Also the very unsporting business of over guessing is now a thing of the past.

 

The combat phase.

Well so much has changed here that I can't even put it into word in on blog. I guess ill do a special one about it when I get my rule book next week. Save to say rank and file units are now back in a big way. There are so many advantages given to having a lot of ranks (or even a lot of file) that you really want to bring some good old infantry again. This gets my personal thumbs up cause I always hated the dominance of heavy cavalry in warhammer. (wel ever since I stopped playing Bretonnia anyway)

My predictions

Well here we go my predictions for what armies will go up in power level and what armies will go down.

+++dwarfs (more tread range for charges, high ld and great warmachines makes dwars the big winner for me

++ empire (the detachment rules seem to be made to fuck the opponent over whit the new rules)

+ Orcs and goblins (well they may still not be that great but they gain a lot in the new rules)

+ogre kingdoms ( the new monster infantry rules are a blessing from the great maw)

- Warriors of Chaos ( not that these will get bad but they suffer a bit by all infantry getting better)

-- Deamons ( well now you'll just have to use something else than 75% characters have you)

--- vampire counts ( for a army that realies both on magic and characters to get the jobs done the future does not look to bright and the changes to fear are both good and very very bad for them)

All in all it think the new edition will require a little les math skills a little more luck and a lot more tactical flexibility

Well I hope you liked the blog this time.

Greets Bad Dice Zappgrot.

• Tought of the day – Change is a force of entropy and must be met whit a closed mind